Exposing pro-Israel bias, propaganda, disinformation and spin in Australia's mainstream media. Monitoring pro-Israel influence in Australia's public and political arena.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Jake Lynch Update 11: VICTORY

A message from Jake:

"My lawyer and the lawyer for Shurat HaDin have agreed that the proceeding by Shurat HaDin be dismissed for lack of standing. And they have agreed for the court to make orders that Shurat HaDin pay my costs of the application for dismissal of the case, and my costs of the proceedings that are not otherwise subject to earlier cost orders.

"Judge Alan Robertson will make the orders in the Federal Court in Sydney, on Wednesday July 16th at 9.30am.

"This comprehensive legal victory represents complete vindication for the principled stance I have taken in fighting off a despicable attack on political freedom in Australia.

"It gives the green light for many more Australians to take their own action in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for rights and freedoms we are lucky enough to be able to take for granted.

"Shurat HaDin is a foreign agency, with admitted past links with the Israeli state, which wanted to use the Australian courts to stifle the growing movement of worldwide political activism for Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions.

"The case began with the smear that BDS advocates are motivated by racism. That was accepted by many of Australia's leading politicians, to their discredit, when they signed up to the so-called 'London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism'.*

"But the attempt to make it stick in court proved a bridge too far. Legal process requires evidence, and logical argument. Once exposed to that test, a claim that passed muster in the corridors of Canberra immediately began to crumble.

"I have faced claims that I should be held responsible for decisions by performing artists, such as Elvis Costello and Snoop Dogg, not to tour Israel. There was never a shred of proof to back up any of these allegations.

"On the narrower issue of the request that I received from Professor Dan Avnon to endorse his application for a Sir Zelman Cowan fellowship, Shurat HaDin managed to persuade neither Avnon himself, nor any other academic, to join their ill-conceived action.

"This week's renewed wave of indiscriminate Israeli violence against Palestinian civilians shows the urgency of taking political action to promote peace with justice. Israel will not change its routine recourse to militarism and lawlessness without coming under pressure.

"The disavowal by the Australian government of the international legal consensus on the occupation of Palestinian territory shows this pressure must come from civil society. That is the rationale for BDS, as a symbolic gesture of solidarity.

"This legal victory for me, and thousands of supporters who have stood by me and contributed to my cause, represents both an opportunity and a challenge. Someone has to make a change. If not us, who? If not now, when?

"The case has given rise to the creation of two important groups to take up this cause: Australians for BDS: http://australiansforbds.wordpress.com/ And within the University of Sydney, Sydney Staff for BDS: http://sydneystaff4bds.org/

A message (LOL) from the head of Shurat HaDin, Nitsana Darshan-Litigator in yesterday's Australian:

"Professor Lynch was taking 'a cowardly approach' by 'trying to get the case dismissed on a technicality' rather than run 'a fair and public trial on the merits. He is running away from the fight like the Arabs ran from the battlefield in the Six-Day War'." ('No plaintiffs left' in case against Lynch, Ean Higgins, 9/7/14)

Faith communities do not have a right to self-determination, and even if, in some mad, sectarian, parallel universe, they did, the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine (whose ancestry goes back to the Canaanite era and who were living in Palestine at the time of Zionist settlement), those known today as the Palestinian people, would have a prior right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.